When I was a little kid, men who were the age that I am now, asked me if I was (or was named after) Sir Malcolm Campbell. I shrugged, indicating, maybe. Then I went and ask my dad, “Who the hell is this guy?” (Note, when I was in grade school I wasn’t actually allowed to use the word “hell.”)

I learned that he was a famous racecar driver who at various times during the 1930s and 1940s held the land and water speed records. And, he wrote the book Speed on Wheels about his exploits in his car named “Bluebird.”

The Campbell-Railton Blue Bird with a supercharged Rolls-Royce R V12 engine took the speed record at 301.137 mph in 1935. It’s probably not street legal though if it is, I don’t even want to know how much Allstate or State Farm would charge to insure it. If I’d persuaded my parents to let me buy that Jaguar I wanted, I would have found an Audubon-style license plate of a bluebird to put on the front.

However, this was not my car. Since it wasn’t (and still isn’t), I did not write this book:

Yes, this is an earlier car than the one shown above. When I told people I was a writer, some said “Congrats on Speed on Wheels.” I didn’t know whether to be flattered or to shout, “What the hell’s wrong with you?”

I wanted to get a picture of Campbell and say, “Does this look like me?”

“No, it doesn’t, does it?” Sure, maybe it’s all smoke and mirrors and this is me; the trouble is if it is me, I’m dead. Somebody somewhere looked at Campbell’s dare-devil life and said it’s amazing he died of natural causes. Unfortunately, his son Donald–who held both water and land speed records–was killed during a record attempt in 1967. I’m superstitious enough that I decided when I read the news that if I ever had a son, I wouldn’t name him Donald.

Summing up: I drive a 14-year-old Buick and it’s not blue. Its top speed is somewhere around 90 mph.

—Malcolm

My books “College Avenue,” “At Sea,” and “The Sun Singer” will be free on Kindle for Black Friday, November 26th through November 30th.